To help voters to find their polling station on March 21, Open State Foundation launched WaarIsMijnStemlokaal.nl with all more than 9 thousand polling stations. Not only can you find polling stations with the website Where is my polling station?, but you can also find other information such as opening hours and wheelchair accessibility. It is the first time that information from all polling stations has been bundled in a standardised manner and made available to everyone as open data. This means that everyone can find the polling stations in all municipalities and the data can be used by everyone.
Data polling stations advisory referendum (csv) en Municipal elections (csv)During the Dutch general elections in 2017, Open State Foundation collected data about polling stations manually via municipal websites. Each municipality then published its own information about polling stations in its own way. Open State Foundation published the collected information via an online map that was shared via Facebook, enabling more than one million Dutch people to find their polling station.
Polling station standard
Municipalities have now provided their own list of polling stations according to a standard that municipalities have drawn up in collaboration with the Netherlands Association of Municipalities at the beginning of this year. Half of all municipalities have now made their own information about polling stations available according to the same standard. The rest has been supplemented with data collected by the Geodienst of the University of Groningen.
Sustainable solution
‘The fact that municipalities now make themselves information about polling stations available according to the same standard is an important step in making open data of municipalities available to everyone via a central location’, says Tom Kunzler of Open State Foundation. ‘This is a sustainable solution. Next year there will be elections again, for the Provincial States and the European Parliament. Municipalities then only have to pass on changes’.
On 21 March 2018, Facebook again will post the ‘Facebook Vote call’ with a link to the map with polling stations. The project ‘Where is my polling station? is an initiative of Open State Foundation with support from the Ministry of the Interior in collaboration with VNG Realisatie, Civity, RUG Geodienst and BKB|Het Campagnebureau.